DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: The Czech indictment is further accusing you of having supported the Czech Fascist organization Vlayka. It bases this charge on a memorandum which you yourself wrote concerning a discussion which you had with Hacha, the President of Czechoslovakia, on 26 March 1940. According to this memorandum you told Hacha that the personal and moral qualities of the Vlayka leaders were well known to you; in any case, you had to confirm the fact that this movement, this organization, was the only one which had taken a positive stand toward the Reich and toward collaboration with the Reich. How about that?
VON NEURATH: The Vlayka movement was the same as the collaborationists in France. This movement worked to bring about a German-Czech collaboration and, in fact, long before the Protectorate was established. But the leaders of this movement were, in my opinion, rather dubious characters, as I showed in the words to Hacha quoted above. These leaders threatened and slandered President Hacha and members of the Czech Government among others. State Secretary Frank had known these men from former times and he wanted to support them merely in consideration of their former co-operation with him. However, I refused to do this, just as I refused the various applications of these people to visit me.
On the other hand, it is possible that Frank supported them from a fund which Hitler had placed at his disposal without my knowledge and about which Frank was under obligation not to tell me anything.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: What attitude, now, did you take to the dissolution of parties—of political parties—and of trade unions?
VON NEURATH: That was like the control of the press, a necessity which resulted from the system, from the political system of the Reich. In any event, through this step taken by President Hacha and despite the measures taken by Germany, no country suffered less from the war than the Protectorate. The Czech people were the only ones in middle and eastern Europe who could retain their national, cultural, and economic entity almost to its full extent.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: Now I should like to turn to the point raised by the Prosecution which is concerned with an alleged cultural suppression. What can you tell us about the handling of Czech educational affairs?
VON NEURATH: The Czech universities and other institutions of higher education, as has been stated before, were closed at Hitler’s order in November 1939. Again and again, at the request of President Hacha and of the Protectorate Government, I appealed directly to Hitler to have these schools reopened. But due to the dominating position of Herr Himmler, I had no success. The consequence of the closing of the universities, of course, was that a large number of young people who otherwise would have become university students now had to look for work of a manual sort. The closing of the institutions of higher learning also had repercussions on the secondary school level. This had already been heavily burdened after the separation of the Sudetenland in the autumn of 1938, for the entire Czech intelligentsia from this region had returned to the Czech-speaking area, or what was later the Protectorate. Hence for the young people from the secondary schools there was hardly any employment left. It was about the same situation which is now prevailing in Germany. Concerning the closing of Czech lower schools and other planned efforts to restrict Czech youth in their cultural freedom and their educational possibilities, I know nothing.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: Did you yourself approve of the closing of Czech institutions of higher learning ordered by Hitler?
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Von Lüdinghausen, he said that he tried to intervene and get rid of Hitler’s order.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: If that is sufficient for the Tribunal then he need not answer the question further.